Nadia Krasteva makes her San Diego Opera debut in “Samson and Delilah”

When San Diego Opera general director Ian Campbell first heard mezzo-soprano Nadia Krasteva ﻿nearly 10 years ago at the Vienna State Opera, she was performing the role of the page in Strauss’ “Salome.”

It’s an incidental part with a minimal amount of singing, but that’s all Campbell needed.

Apparently Campbell wasn’t the only one to find something intriguing in Krasteva’s voice. During her 10 years as a resident artist at the Vienna State Opera, she quickly moved from minor roles to secondary roles to top billing — or at least top billing in the relatively few roles where a mezzo is the star.

San Diego Opera presents Saint-Saëns’ “Samson and Delilah”

She’s now singing frequently throughout Europe and the U.S. and makes her highly anticipated San Diego Opera debut as Delilah in Saint-Saëns’ “Samson and Delilah.” She also has debuts scheduled for La Scala in 2014 (as Amneris in “Aida”) and the Metropolitan Opera (Eboli in “Don Carlos”).

“These are great opportunities, it’s true,” the Bulgarian-born, Austrian-based mezzo said during a rehearsal break recently. “I’ve sung in so many great opera productions, so many great theaters, that I’m more or less used to it. I’m prepared. I’m ready for this. I have my experience. I believe in the way I do things. It’s OK.

“We always have to remember that singing is great, but it’s not everything in the world. You take seriously your job and you work seriously on these things, but still you have to remember and never to forget: singing is only one part of your life.”

Larger perspective

Krasteva speaks like a true mezzo-soprano. If tenors and sopranos can be demanding and high strung, mezzo-sopranos tend to be more grounded. After all, most women are mezzo-sopranos (in chorale music, they are called altos). And even if they sometimes have a range that can challenge a soprano, they don’t make their livelihood residing up in that upper, rarefied register.

Mezzos specialize in the voice’s lower, more nuanced realms, and the roles they are afforded reflect those darker qualities. To borrow a widely used opera cliché, mezzo sopranos are typically assigned to “witches, bitches or britches” (as mezzos are often called upon to sing “trouser roles” — male characters written in the mezzo range).

Krasteva, who is singing the role for the first time, believes Delilah goes a little too far when she mocks Samson in the opera’s final act after he’s lost his strength, but she admires Delilah’s fortitude and focus and she’s entranced by Saint-Saëns’ music.

“It’s very passionate,” she said. “All the music in this opera is flowing. It has very long, legato lines which come very naturally. You listen to it and you think that it is so logical and so simple and so beautiful at the same time.”

Like sopranos, mezzo-sopranos are generally categorized by the weight of their voice, whether coloratura, lyric or dramatic. Krasteva tends toward the dramatic — and she’ll be calling upon that aspect of her voice as Delilah — but she is also able to negotiate the lyric repertoire and even step into a few soprano roles like Adalgisa (in “Norma”).

“When you learn how to go from one music to another music without being disturbed, this is very good for the voice,” Krasteva said. “I think it develops your voice over time if you don’t put your voice in — how do I say it? — one box, like in a very small area of a composer’s work or a certain style of music.

“You have always to watch that it doesn’t hurt your voice or it doesn’t change it dramatically, of course. But when you sing more Bellini, or Donizetti, it gives you the line, it gives you the focus of the voice. When you sing Verdi, the more dramatic Verdi parts, it gives you more a certain richness of the voice and the darkness.”

Personality matters

Because of her versatility and her long residency with the Vienna State Opera, which as a repertory company gave her the opportunity to sing an entire spectrum of roles, Krasteva has largely managed to avoid the bane of many American singers: the audition.

She’s generally approached by directors or managers who have heard her sing a certain role, or imagine her singing another role. And she rarely, she explains, says no.

“This is a difficult issue for every singer,” she said. “It’s often a question of what an agent sees in you, or what a director, or what an intendant wants to hear from you. When I get an invitation, I take it seriously, and like everybody, I try to do my best.”

Although Campbell makes it a point to hire only singers he’s heard firsthand, he’s constantly approached by opera agents who have a set idea of the type of singer he likes (a category into which Krasteva fits perfectly).

“They know what I’m looking for,” Campbell said. “I’m looking for line. I like a singer who can phrase and not chop phrases up that should be long. They know I like warmth. I’m not impressed by high notes if they are ugly, even though the audience might like them. And I like all of that combined with personality.”

That, of course, is the most mysterious, subjective aspect of any singer.

“People have different tastes about everything,” Krasteva said. “One person might say small, blond women are the most beautiful, and others say, no, big, brown-haired women are the most beautiful. There’s not one opinion.

“It’s the same in opera. So I just try to do it the way I feel it, with my taste, and if it touches people and makes them feel like me, that is great.”

Because ultimately, Krasteva is singing for her own love of singing. When she was 6 years old and was asked to draw a picture of what she wanted to be, she drew a singer. When she was a little older and was hiking out in the countryside, she’d sing out for herself, just to sing.

Now she’s singing for a considerably large audience, but she’s always trying to recapture that feeling of effortless joy.

“We have to be free, like a bird has to feel free inside to be able to sing,” she said. She can’t be too worried about making a mistake, or pleasing everyone, or feeling the weight of the production resting on her shoulders.

“You have to have this freedom in your soul so you feel free to create,” she said. “Otherwise, you can’t create. If you feel like in a prison — like, ‘Oh my God, I depend on these people. If I can’t do it, this is the end’ — you can’t do it.

“You have always to feel like I will do my best. I will have fun with it. I will enjoy it so much and I will give my heart. Even if something is not so perfect, I will give my heart. I will put it inside of this.”

Maybe that’s what Campbell heard: Krasteva putting her heart into her role, no matter how small. He’s counting on her to do the same with “Delilah.”

Singing Lessons

If you really want to hear “The Voice,” don’t bother watching TV. It’s opera season, and the San Diego Opera is bringing in more than a dozen singers whose pipes will blow away anything you’ve seen on the tube.

This year, we’re going to focus on four of them, representing each voice type (soprano, mezzo-soprano/alto, tenor and bass), and talk to them about their craft.